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Analysis of religion in life of Pi
Analysis of religion in life of Pi
Analysis of religion in life of Pi
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“Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love,” (p. 208). Life of Pi tells the story of Pi Patel as he uses prayer and religion to overcome the difficulty of being accompanied by only a bengal tiger in the middle of the ocean. After losing his entire family in a shipwreck, Pi manages his new situation by constantly communicating with God. Both Pi and myself have experienced similar situations which prove that we have exclusively used faith to overcome hardships. In Life of Pi, the protagonist, Piscine “Pi” Patel, survives 227 days at sea with the help of a higher power. He is given the strength to fight for survival, which proves that God is among him. Throughout the story, he acquires a spiritual courage, which allows him to deal with his physical misery. Though Pi had gone through a lamentable tragedy, he claimed, “It was natural that, bereft and desperate as I was, in the throes of unremitting suffering, I should turn to God,” (p. 284). Pi never feels resentful towards God for putting …show more content…
When I was thirteen, I was told that my grandmother would pass away within weeks, and He gave me the strength that I needed to continue living without her. I felt as though I was going to lose everything, but I knew that God would protect her far better than I could. I resorted to adding prayer into my daily routine, and I convinced myself that God would help her look after me from Heaven for the remainder of my lifetime. Turning prayer into a habitual activity definitely comforted me, because I felt as though God was listening. Had my family and I not been so religious, the loss of my grandma would have been undoubtedly more difficult. I am positive that my connection with God is what made her passing easier to understand. Having substantial faith allowed me to endure this challenging situation, because it was evident that I would never have to experience it
Faith is an important aspect in everybody. It helps us see God, and believe in him. Our faith is always tested when there is a hard theological decision to make or somebody else trying to break your bold with God. The movie Field of Dreams, is a great example of how staying true to your faith can sometimes be hard.
Faith is defined by acquiring substantial confidence in something that cannot be explained using definite material proof. Although faith is often mentioned when speaking of religion, one can have faith in anything. In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi and John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany, both authors acknowledge the importance of faith in family, friends, and oneself; however, the main focus of faith in both novels is centered on religion. Both novels emphasize that a strong faith is fundamental in overcoming both emotional and physical obstacles. In the novels Life of Pi and A Prayer for Owen Meany, this is expressed through symbolism, characterization, and plot.
Throughout the novel, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, the notion of how the concepts of idealism and truth mold an individual’s life are vividly displayed. This is emblematized as Pi questions the idea of truth and the affects it has on different aspect of life, as well as his idealistic values being transformed due to the contrast between taking action and sheer belief. The messages generated will alter the way the reader thinks, as well as reshaping their overall perception of truth.
Whenever I learned to trust and turn to God, I found His comfort to satisfy my soul. Almost two years ago, one of my best friends became extremely ill and had to leave home and go to a treatment clinic. (For her privacy, I will not say the illness). She had to immediately leave for she was due to die in two weeks if she did not find help. Whenever she told me the news, my whole world flipped upside down. My life had been pretty okay before this, just a few ups and downs. This was the first major trial in my life and I was not prepared. Of course, I prayed for her but I did not grasp the fact that God was going to save her. I was extremely emotionally unstable and I tried to fix myself on my own. This never worked, I may have had temporarily relief but the fear came back. One day I finally gave up trying to fix myself and turned to God. I asked Him to forgive me for not turning to Him first and I allowed him to fix me. I placed my trust in him and ran to him for comfort. Even when it was difficult, I knew I had to trust in Him. Once I placed my faith in Him, my comfort came. I had faith that He would heal her and she will not
Pi spoke in a guilty tone when recounting one of his stories of sea, “I will confess that I caught one of his arms with the gaff and used it for bait. I prayed for his soul every day,” by having Pi “confess” what he did to the sailor Martel provides the character with a guilty tone (256). After the incident with the Dorado, Pi understood that God forgives sins necessary towards survival. However, it is obvious that Pi has an internal struggle with guilt since he still feels the need to pray for the sailor years after cutting his arm. While on the lifeboat, there were some desperate situations in which a sin had to be committed in order for Pi Patel to survive, and although God proved that the boy’s actions in those times of stress where forgiven, the child still struggled to relieve his memories of certain dramatic
In drastic situations, human psychology uses coping mechanisms to help them through it. In the novel, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Pi’s coping mechanism is his religions and his projection of Richard Parker. Martel’s Life of Pi shows how the projection of Richard Parker played a greater role in keeping Pi alive in comparison to his beliefs in his religions. During the period in which Pi was stranded on the lifeboat, Richard Parker kept Pi aware, helped Pi make the right decisions, and was Pi’s sub-consciousness.
It is not unlikely that in severe circumstances, humans use the company of one another to survive. For example, in Night, Elie Wiesel uses his father to motivate him to live during his terrifying stay at Auschwitz. However, not all cases of this “survival relationship” necessarily involve two humans. In Life of Pi by Yann Martel, when he is shipwrecked at sea for 227 days, Pi Patel faces life-threatening circumstances every minute of the day. After his rescue,though, he tells two different stories to explain this incredulous journey. One involves loneliness and brutality,while the other involves animals and faith, the latter being the true story. Pi’s explanation involving animals is the true story because it vividly and descriptively displays
Religion is and always has been a sensitive topic. Some choose to acknowledge that there is a God and some choose to deny this fact to the death. For those who deny the presence of a higher being, “Life of Pi” will most likely change your thought process concerning this issue. Yann Martel’s, “Life of Pi”, is a compelling story that shows the importance of obtaining religion and faith. Piscine (Pi) Patel is both the protagonist and the narrator of Martell’s religious eye-opener who undergoes a chain effect of unbelievable catastrophes. Each of these catastrophic events leaving him religiously stronger because he knows that in order to endure what he has endured, there has got to be a God somewhere.
On its surface, Martel’s Life of Pi proceeds as a far-fetched yet not completely unbelievable tale about a young Indian boy named Pi who survives after two hundred twenty-seven days on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. It is an uplifting and entertaining story, with a few themes about companionship and survival sprinkled throughout. The ending, however, reveals a second story – a more realistic and dark account replacing the animals from the beginning with crude human counterparts. Suddenly, Life of Pi becomes more than an inspiring tale and transforms into a point to be made about rationality, faith, and how storytelling correlates the two. The point of the book is not for the reader to decide which story he or she thinks is true, but rather what story he or she thinks is the better story. In real life, this applies in a very similar way to common belief systems and religion. Whether or not God is real or a religion is true is not exactly the point, but rather whether someone chooses to believe so because it adds meaning and fulfillment to his or her life. Life of Pi is relevant to life in its demonstration of storytelling as a means of experiencing life through “the better story.”
The Life of Pi has many essential themes. The themes in the movie and book the Life of Pi help the audience identify the figurative meaning of the story. Yann Martel’s Life of Pi explores the will to live effectively. He does this by using specific diction and sentences to depict the main character’s ambition to survive.
Once, Pi almost gives up on the sea, but prayers let him take heart of grace again: “I was giving up. I would have given up-if a voice hadn’t made itself heard in my heart. The voice said, ‘I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare. I will beat the odds, as great as they are. I have survived so far, miraculously. Now I will turn miracle into routine. The amazing will be seen every day. I will put in all the hard work necessary. Yes, as long as God is with me, I will not die. Amen.’” (Martel p.186). When Pi stays on the lifeboat and hopes for being rescued, he keeps busy with daily rituals. Pi prays more than he does anything else on the raft. He considers prayers just as important as any other physical preparation. Religion is Pi’s emotional anchor, it gives him the sense of belief and hope for survival. Therefore, religion is significant in Pi’s
The alternate account places Pi on the life boat with a sailor, his mother, and the cook. The Sailor with the broken leg is killed by the Cook for fish bait apparently. The cook then begins to eat the strips that he made for this fish bait, first sneakily then when Pi’s mother discovers this she calls him out on it he openly ate the man. Both Pi and Pi’s mother are disgusted, and she fights with the Cook. Eventually, the argument flares up and Pi’s mother tells him to get off the raft, so he did so and when he did the Cook stabbed his mother repeatedly until she was dead. After this, time passes and Pi eventually builds up enough courage to grab the knife and get ready to kill the Cook. However, when he does so the Cook just lays there seemingly
Pi maintains his religious beliefs while on the life boat through his daily prayers. He takes time aside each day to say the prayers that he always would say. In one instance, he turns where he believes Mecca is located, and prays his traditional prayers towards Mecca. Pi also often states that he will include specific animals in his prayers, such as the zebra aboard his lifeboat, and the first fish that he ever killed. With Pi keeping his ritual prayers going, it helped him to survive.
Pi describes his childhood experiences about his father’s zoo in Part one of the novel. As a child, he viewed Pondicherry Zoo as a place of peace and comfort. Throughout his time on the Pondicherry Zoo, Pi received negative comments regarding the animal’s life on the zoo, such as; “I have heard nearly as much nonsense about zoos as I have about God and religion. Well-meaning but misinformed people think animals in the wild are “happy” because they are “free.”” (Martel 14).
In conclusion, the main idea in Life of Pi is that having the will to survive is a key component to survival. The three ways this is shown is through symbolism of the colour orange, having religion on the protagonist’s side and the thirst and hunger experienced by the protagonist. Things do not always happen the way one would want them to happen: “Things didn’t turn out the way they were supposed to, but what can you do? You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it” (101) Faith determines ones destiny and nothing can be changed about that, one can live their life to the fullest and enjoy every moment and not regret it. No matter what faith throws at one, as long as they have the will to survive they can pull through anything.